


it's a small crime

by glorious_spoon



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/M, Fuck Or Die, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 19:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: In the aftermath of a brutal captivity, Jyn and Cassian try to find a way to pick up the pieces.





	it's a small crime

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://rogueonekink.dreamwidth.org/1084.html?thread=689724#cmt689724) on rogueonekink:
> 
> _I've got nothing against that sort of bad-guys-made-them-do-it dubcon fic where the characters want each other anyway and manage to take some pleasure in it. But for once I'd like to see the trope played ruthlessly straight as a violation, a deeply traumatic experience rendered even worse because the characters were tentatively making their way toward romance, and now it's an open question whether that relationship has been destroyed before it could even start._
> 
> Title from [9 Crimes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVDPRLszL6w) by Damien Rice.

He doesn’t look at her.

That’s… something, at least. Jyn isn’t actually sure if it makes anything better, because it’s not like she can’t feel his hands, warm and rough against her skin, the brush of his knuckles as he unfastens her shirt, the deliberately even sound of his breathing. There are no caresses, no unnecessary touches. He’s as efficient and clinical as a medical droid; it’s only when she’s finally naked, skin prickling in the cold, that he hesitates. His hands lift, pause close enough that she can almost feel their warmth, then drop. She glances up at him, but his face is turned away. What little she can see of his expression is a chilling blank.

_“Continue,”_ their captor says, not bothering to hide the glee in his voice. He’s human, or close enough. Galderian slaver insignia tattooed on both cheeks. His voice is mechanical, modulated by his breathing mask. _“Or we will. And we will not be gentle.”_

Cassian breathes in slowly through his nose. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to try something stupid and noble and pointless like flat-out refusing, and she’s marshalling all the arguments, _better you than them, I don’t mind, it’s okay_ … lies, all of them, but who doesn’t know the value of necessary lies in their line of work?

Cassian isn’t stupid, though, and he doesn’t hesitate again. He lets out the breath he was holding; his throat moves as he swallows. Then he pushes his hand into his trousers; she can see the muscles of arm move, the burning flush across his cheeks, but she doesn’t look down to see what he’s doing. No need. There’s nothing about this situation that’s even remotely sexy, but if he can’t get himself hard, they’ll either feed him drugs… or they’ll just do it themselves.

She doesn’t want this, not at all. But she wants that even less.

It’s hard to maneuver with the chains on her wrists, but she can get a hand between her legs, her cold fingers dry and rough against her cunt. Enough to loosen up a little, anyway, because it’s been a long damn time, and if he fucks her dry right now, she’ll bleed.

She squeezes her eyes shut when he pushes her legs apart and steps between them, turns her face to the rough stone wall. Tries to pretend that she’s anywhere but here.

* * *

Afterward, they cut her down. Four of them, all human and jeering, with pinching, groping fingers. She can see Cassian tense out of the corner of her eye, but in the end they just dump her on the floor of the cell. The door clangs shut when they leave, taking the light with them, and she scrabbles blindly for her clothes in the darkness. She locates her pants and pulls them on, shoves her feet into her boots. Her tunic is twisted inside out, the fasteners knotted, and she can feel her fingers begin to shake as she struggles to untangle it, blows out an angry, frustrated breath through her nose.

“Do you…” Cassian’s voice, closer than she expected and uncharacteristically hesitant. “Do you need help?”

“No,” she snaps, finally just gives up and yanks the kriffing thing over her head inside-out.

There are several moments of silence, and then he says, tonelessly, “They would have killed us both.”

“I know,” she retorts, because he’s not wrong. “You did what you had to. We both did.”

“The others will come for us.”

“I know,” she says again.

She can hear his intake of breath, but in the end, he doesn’t speak again. She’s glad of that. It’s not his fault, but he’s the only target nearby, and right now the urge to hit him is very strong. She settles her back against the wall instead, ignoring the cooling slickness on her thighs, the way the seam of her pants abrades where she’s sore and tender, pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes hard enough to hurt.

She isn’t going to cry. She isn’t. Not here, not for this, not when she’s already lived through so much worse.

There’s a rustle of clothing and soft footsteps as Cassian moves away from her to settle at the far end of the tiny cell, too far away to touch. Far enough away that she can pretend not to hear the uneven way his breath hitches, or at least convince herself that it’s just from the pain of the beating they dealt him earlier, that he’s not sitting there on the dark floor like she is, trying to swallow down tears.

He’s not crying, and there’s no reason for her to cry. They’ve both killed for the Rebellion; they’ve seen cities and worlds die. This is nothing. It’s nothing. If it has shattered a small, private dream into pieces, well, she’s lost much bigger dreams than this. She’ll survive.

* * *

It’s at least a day later when K-2SO rips the cell door off the hinges. Jyn flinches at the sudden flood of light, flings an arm up to shield her eyes.

“You appear remarkably uninjured,” the droid observes dispassionately. Jyn squints up through watering eyes to see the tall, blurry shape of it hauling Cassian to his feet.

“We’re fine,” Cassian grunts. It’s the first time he’s spoken since— Since. “Where are the others?”

“We have a pilot. A Lieutenant Bey, I believe. Odd woman. Very impatient.”

“What about Bodhi?” Cassian asks, urgency sharpening his voice. Jyn looks up as well.

“Oh, him.” K2 moves into the cell, tilting its head, birdlike, at Jyn. “I don’t believe the brain damage is too severe.”

“What?” Jyn snaps.

“He’ll be fine,” Cassian translates, a hint of humor surfacing in his voice. It vanishes as quickly as it appeared. He’s stretching painfully; his bare torso is mottled with fading bruises. He glances over at her like he can feel the weight of her stare, then quickly looks away. “Let’s go. Did you take care of the guards?”

“Oh, yes. They’re dead.”

“Good,” Jyn says savagely, and pushes herself up to her feet. The world tilts dizzyingly around her for a moment before K2 steadies her with a bruising metal grip. Right. No food for the past two days. Now that she’s thinking about it, her stomach feels as shrunken as a desert fig, her mouth cotton-dry. Hopefully they thought to bring ration-packs on this rescue mission.

K2 peers at her. “Are you going to faint? Don’t.”

“I’m fine.” She shakes its hand off. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The halls outside are scattered with bodies, most of them human, all of them bearing slaver tattoos. Jyn counts thirteen before she gives up and focuses on keeping her feet moving.

“How far?” she hears Cassian ask, in an undertone. He doesn’t look at her, but she grits her teeth all the same, straightens up, tries to force the weakness from her limbs. She’s running on fumes right now, but she’ll be damned if she collapses like some kind of fainting damsel before they even make it to safety. And anyway, Cassian doesn’t look much better.

“Not far,” K2 replies, not in an undertone. “Two hundred meters past the main entrance. Are you going to fall over? I can carry you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Cassian says. His voice lacks the usual edge of humor; he sounds very tired. “I can walk. We both can.”

“If you insist. There’s our ship.” The droid extends one long limb toward the sun-drenched desert outside. Jyn squints, and can just make out the ungainly shape of what looks like an old transport shuttle, a small figure in a dark-colored jumpsuit waiting out front.

As they approach, she can see that the woman— Lieutenant Bey, presumably— is practically vibrating with impatience. Her dark eyes flick over them briefly, assessing, before she addresses Cassian. “Captain Andor. Were you followed?”

“No,” Cassian says shortly, and climbs into the ship without another word. Bey’s eyebrows lift, and she looks after him for a long moment before glancing at Jyn, who shrugs.

“I said I would take care of any resistance,” K2 adds, sounding aggrieved.

“Very well,” Bey says after a long moment. “Let’s get out of here before the rest of them come back.”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” Jyn says, and stomps past her into the cargo bay. Cassian is already seated, strapping himself in. The only other seat is right next to him on the narrow bench at the far side of the bay. She hesitates as the bay door clangs shut and Lieutenant Bey moves past them into the cockpit, hesitates long enough for K2 to come up from behind and give her what’s probably intended to be a gentle nudge. It nearly sends her stumbling.

“This is a cargo shuttle,” it says.

Which means no inertial dampeners in the bay, which means that if she’s not strapped in she’ll rattle around like an egg in a tin can. “I know.”

“I didn’t rescue you just to have you concuss yourself on the wall when we break atmosphere,” the droid adds, planting itself and magnetizing to the floor.

“Fine,” Jyn snarls, and crosses the bay in two long strides, drops into the vacant seat. Cassian is quiet, his gaze fixed on his knees, his whole body turned as far away as he can get it, which is not very far with the jump harness in place. His jaw is tense.

Jyn straps herself into her own harness, looks down. There’s maybe six centimeters of space between her thigh and his; between that and the thick pants they’re both wearing, it’s impossible to feel the heat of his body. She imagines she can all the same. Considers trying to say something, but in the end, she keeps silent.

* * *

After their course is plotted, Lieutenant Bey ducks her head into the cargo bay. “We should make it to base in approximately three standard hours. Are either of you going to need medical attention before then?

“No,” Jyn says. Cassian shakes his head mutely.

“Good. Because right now, the supplies I have are limited to whatever those kriffing Imperials left in storage. Should be some ration packs, anyway. You look starved.” She ducks back into the cockpit.

K2 demagnetizes with a clank. “I’ll check the storage pod,” it says, and stumps away, leaving the two of them alone.

It’s not like they haven’t been alone most of the time since it happened, but it’s different when she can see his face. He looks wan and bruised and, frankly, terrible.

“You’re not hurt?” he asks quietly, after a long moment. He’s still not looking at her.

“No,” Jyn says. “But you are. You lied.”

“Cracked ribs. They’ll heal. It’s nothing serious.” He pauses for a moment, then takes a deep breath and says, “You should see a medical droid when we get back to base, though.”

“Why?” Jyn asks. It comes out sharp and snide, and more words are tumbling out before she can stop them. “Did you give me some exotic kind of crotch-rot? That would be just my luck, wouldn’t it?”

Cassian flinches like he’s been slapped. “No. But there are other things…”

Other things. Of course. Because it _would_ be just her luck if her contraceptives chose now to fail, and a pregnancy is the last thing either of them needs. Somehow, that thought didn’t even occur to her until now. Compartmentalizing. It’s a long-standing habit of hers to only look at the part of a problem that she can immediately solve. Easier to stay sane that way.

Stupid, in a case like this.

“Alright then. Fine. I’ll check in with Medical,” she says, then adds, grudgingly, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says, looking back down at his knees.

Before she can find anything else to say, K2 comes clanging back in with the first-aid kit and a handful of dusty-looking ration packs, and the moment is broken.

* * *

There are no medical droids back at the base, only a tiny under-stocked infirmary staffed by a single tired-looking Sullistan woman. Jyn almost balks at that, but she forces herself to stillness on one of the narrow cots while Cassian suffers his ribs to be prodded gently, his bruised abdomen palpitated.

“Bruises only,” the doctor tells him in rapid, liquid Sullustese. “Nothing that won’t heal on its own, though it will hurt for some days yet. We’re short on bacta, but I can give you something for the pain—”

“Save it for those who need it,” Cassian says, pulling on the soft white infirmary smock she hands him. It makes an odd contrast with the grimy, blood-encrusted pants he’s still wearing. The doctor gave him clean pants, too, but of course he’s not going to change with Jyn in the room.

Probably, she should have waited outside, but she knows if she leaves now, she won’t be able to resist the impulse to cut and run.

“Very well,” the doctor says. “If the pain becomes worse, or if there is any blood in your urine, you will come back. Yes?”

“Yes, fine,” Cassian says. He’s still holding himself tense, elbows tucked in close to his body, shoulders tight, poised to flee. “Can I go now?”

“You can go,” the doctor says, after a long moment. She waits until Cassian slips off of the table and retreats out of the room before turning to Jyn. “And you, Sergeant Erso? Are you experiencing any pain?”

“No,” Jyn says, honestly enough. She’s sore and tired and she feels filthy enough to peel her skin off, but nothing they did to her actually hurt much. That makes it worse, in a way. Pain would be a good distraction right now. She wraps her arms around her ribs, fingers gripping the rough, grimy fabric of her shirt. “I need emergency contraceptives.”

The doctor’s face betrays no surprise, beyond a single slow blink. Why would it? Rape is a common enough torture method, especially out here on the Rim where the Empire and their antiseptic methods of causing pain are less prevalent. Unlike Imperial officers, slavers don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Or someone else’s hands, in this case. “How many? And what races?”

“Just one. Human.”

“And Captain Andor?” Jyn freezes, but when the only expression she can read on the doctor’s broad, jowled face is concern. “If he was attacked as well—”

Oh.

_Yes_ , she thinks, because he was, but not in the way the doctor thinks. Not in a way that leaves marks. “No,” she says instead. “They didn’t touch him.”

That much is true, anyway. She accepts the pills the doctor hands her in a fold of paper, the cup of water that tastes of stale metal and chemicals, the inoculation packet. She believed Cassian when he said he didn’t have anything— he’s a liar, but not about things like this, and anyway, he lives like a monk— but it’s better safe than sorry. And explaining that she doesn’t need it will probably result in more questions than she wants to answer.

She flatly refuses a pelvic exam, accepts the clean clothes that the doctor digs out of storage, and escapes to the darkness of the hallway as soon as she’s able. It’s well into this planet’s night-cycle, which means that the base is nearly empty, thank the Force, and she makes it to the barracks without any awkward conversations.

She’s half-afraid that she’ll run into Cassian in the public ‘fresher, but either he cleaned up quick or he didn’t bother at all; the narrow, dingy, tiled room is empty. She chooses a stall with a clear view of the door over the low privacy screen, stands under the steaming spray until an alarm _blats_ obnoxiously at her, startling her out of an exhausted daze to warn her that her water allotment is almost out. Her skin is pink and fresh when she pulls the scrubs on, but she still feels as filthy as she did when she walked in.

She leaves her dirty clothes on the floor. The cleaning droids will either have them washed or throw them out; either way, she can’t bring herself to touch them.

Out in the barracks, the flimsy screens do next to nothing to muffle the sound of several dozen snoring beings. There’s an unoccupied bunk shoved against the exterior wall, where she’ll be able to hear machinery clanking all night long, and Jyn flops into it with a sigh. Nightmares are an old companion, and between that and the noise she isn’t expecting to doze off anytime soon.

She’s asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, and if the night haunts follow her down into her dreams, she’s too exhausted to heed them.

* * *

Her clothes are clean and folded on the foot of her cot when she wakes, her boots resting on the floor. Someone has scrubbed them so thoroughly that the fibers of the ripweave fabric uppers are starting to come loose, although it’s possible they were already like that; it’s been awhile since she’s seen them this clean.

She turns the bundle over in her hands. The stitching on one of the frogs on her shirt has torn nearly off the garment, like someone was yanking on it with all their strength. It wasn’t Cassian. He was as careful and methodical about undressing her as he is with everything else. It must have been before that, when they were first snatched out of the cantina. Or later, when she was fumbling to dress herself again in the dark…

It doesn’t matter. It’s just a shirt. All it means is that she won’t have to wander around the base in infirmary scrubs until someone decides what to do with her.

She strips efficiently, skin prickling in a way that’s only partly from the cool air, and begins pulling her own clothes back on. She’s almost done fastening up her shirt when the screen is yanked aside unceremoniously and she flinches hard. With a tearing noise, the much-abused frog comes loose in her hand.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” K2 says, setting the screen down and stepping forward into the tiny alcove. “Finally. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Jyn snaps, shoving the damaged fastener into her pocket and leaning down to tug her boots on, determinedly ignoring the way her heart is pounding. This is a Rebellion base. She’s as safe here as she ever is— safer than she’s been for most of her adult life. “Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

“They’re looking for you,” K2 says cryptically, instead of replying. “Come with me.”

It stalks away. Jyn swears under her breath, heaves herself off of her cot, and follows.

“Who’s looking for me?” she asks, only slightly out of breath, when she finally catches up.

The droid peers down at her. “Your pilot.”

“Who?” The dark-haired woman who flew them out, of course, but try as she might she can’t call the woman’s name to mind. “The lieutenant? Why?”

“No.” K2 makes a fairly accurate mechanical interpretation of an exasperated sigh. _“Your_ pilot.”

Jyn blinks at it for a long moment before the coin drops. _“Bodhi?_ He’s here?”

“Well, he was half an hour ago,” K2 says, waspishly, and keeps walking. “I don’t imagine they’ve spaced him since then, although really, who knows? _I_ certainly don’t pretend to understand how organics think.”

It does better at that than Jyn does, most days; she’s seen it work with Cassian like they share a brain, but she doesn’t want to think about Cassian right now. She hasn’t seen him in any of the few occupied bunks they’ve passed, which isn’t surprising; even in the depths of space, he’s up with the dawn most days. Under normal circumstances, he’d never have let her sleep in like this. Under normal circumstances, he’d have been at her bunk an hour ago with a mug of caf to drag her off to some early-morning debriefing or sparring session, and then she could have grumbled and kicked at him and pretended to be angry.

He doesn’t want to see her. He’s barely been able to look at her, since. Which is fine. She doesn’t really want to see him either.

So it’s pretty kriffing perfect when she turns a corner and nearly walks face-first into him.

“Jyn,” he gasps, stumbling back a step, something wide-open and shocked in his face. For a moment— an absurd moment— Jyn almost wants to reach for him. To touch his shoulder, to draw him into a hug, even.

As if she’d be able to touch him now without feeling the ghost of his hands on her, the sour wet stink of that cell and the jeering slavers.

“What are you doing here?” she snaps instead, taking a step back, and his expression closes, goes cool.

“There’s a debriefing at 0900. We’re both expected to be there,” he says shortly. “Excuse me.”

He brushes past her and continues on down the hall. Jyn turns her head to watch his retreating back for a long moment, firmly squashing an absurd impulse to go after him.

When she looks back at K2, the droid is surveilling her calmly.

“What?” she asks sharply.

It cocks its head. “You organics make things very difficult for yourselves, if you want my opinion.”

“I don’t.”

Unoffended, it nods. “Very well. Your pilot is in the mess hall. He says he wants to see you. For some reason.”

And with that, it stalks away after Cassian.

* * *

Bodhi is alive, uninjured but for a fading bruise at his temple and two spectacular black eyes, and abjectly apologetic.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says the moment she drops into the seat opposite him, half-rising, reaching for her and then jerking his hand back like he thinks she might bite him. “I didn’t want to—”

“You did what Cassian ordered you to do,” Jyn interrupts, before he can wind himself up too badly. Any lingering resentment she might have been clinging to is softened by his battered condition and the anxious cast of his face. That, and the fact that it’s not like anything would be _better_ if he was captured with them. “You got the intel out. Right?”

“Yes, yes of course.” He sinks back into his seat and then, almost as an afterthought, pushes the tray in front of him toward her. It’s piled with a frankly absurd amount of food. “Here, please, eat.”

“Your breakfast?” she asks, reluctantly amused. Not so reluctant to choose a golden pastry and bite into it; mostly cool, but still good.

He flaps a hand, dismissive. “I ate a while ago. I’ve been saving this for you. All the good stuff gets picked over early. Cassian was here hours ago; I thought you’d be with him. There’s a briefing at 0900.”

Jyn is suddenly very glad that her mouth is full of food. She chews carefully, swallows, and says, noncommittally, “I’ve heard. I must have missed him.”

“He’s going to be okay,” Bodhi adds hastily, apparently misinterpreting her expression. “He’s worried about you.”

“He said that?” Jyn asks, surprised.

“I interpreted,” Bodhi says, flapping a hand dismissively. “But you are okay, though, right? You and Cassian? They didn’t hurt you too badly?”

If Bodhi had grown up like she did— like Cassian did— he wouldn’t even need to ask a question like that. But he’s lived a fairly law-abiding life, for all the time he’s spent in the Rebellion; he’s not the sort of man who’s spent time in slaver dens, learning to smile in their faces instead of killing them on the spot. He’s still innocent in a way she can’t bring herself to shatter.

“No,” Jyn says, forcing a smile. “They didn’t hurt us.”

“Good,” Bodhi says, and plucks a pastry off of the plate. Jyn looks at the one she’s holding, then sets it back down. She’s lost her appetite.

* * *

The debriefing is as awkward as she was expecting and then some. She and Cassian stand on opposite ends of the strategy table, as far apart as they can be without one of them actually leaving the room, and give their reports in monotone with skimpy detail.

“Sergeant Bey was able to get us clear of the moon’s gravity before their reinforcements returned,” Cassian finishes, after she’s given her own highly edited report. “There were no witnesses remaining behind.”

“And you’re quite sure that they were not aware of your true mission,” the colonel says. He’s a blue-haired Corellian, not someone she’s worked with before. It’s not really a question. If Command thought there was any real chance that the mission had been compromised by their capture, they wouldn’t have been fed and showered and sent to sleep before reporting; they’d have been shuffled off to the briefing room dizzy with exhaustion and caked with blood and filth.

Jyn opens her mouth, hesitates, and glances at Cassian. He isn’t looking at her; his expression is perfectly calm.

“Yes, very sure. They were slavers, not Imperials. They were only after a profit.”

And some free entertainment, Jyn thinks, but she doesn’t add that. Might not even be true. No way of knowing who could have been watching on a viewscreen; that whole performance might just have been to whet the buyers’ appetites.

The thought turns her stomach, so she stops thinking it.

“Bodhi got away clean,” she adds, instead. “We made sure they were too busy to follow him.”

They did, at that. Led them on a merry chase through the back alleys of that little moon, fighting just enough to keep them interested, the familiarity of Cassian at her side, his sure hand on the blaster and his terse directions. The thrum of relief when she saw Bodhi’s ship rise up into the dark sky above the city, before they got cornered in that dark little cantina and the world went black.

At least there’s that. She may never be able to look Cassian in the eye again, but at least they got Bodhi out with the intel. It may even be in time to save the crumbling Resistance network on Siroh.

It had better be. She _could_ have gotten away clean, if she didn’t care about that. She could have gotten them both away clean. It’s easier, not having to care about anything or anyone else. Simpler. Sometimes— not often, but sometimes— she could hate Cassian for making her _care._

Life was easier when she could just walk away. Not better, necessarily, but… easier.

The colonel glances between them again, then sighs. “Very well. That parallels the reports we received from Sergeant Bey and the droid K-2SO, and from Pilot Officer Rook. You’ve got two days of medical leave; I suggest you take the opportunity to rest.”

“What is the situation on Siroh?” Cassian asks immediately, like he’s been holding the question behind his teeth this whole time.

The colonel flips his datapad off, doesn’t quite look Cassian’s way. “The situation is currently in flux, Captain Andor.”

“What does that mean?” Cassian asks, voice tight.

“It means that you are on medical leave,” the colonel says firmly, tucking the datapad under his arm, “and there’s nothing on Siroh that needs your personal attention enough for me to override the doctor’s recommendation that you _stay_ on medical leave for the next two days. Dismissed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Cassian’s jaw tighten, his nostrils flare, and she wonders with a sort of detached curiosity if he’s actually going to take a swing at a superior officer right there in the briefing room.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Cassian Andor, perfect paragon of self-control. The only time she’s ever seen him snap is at her, and even that was just words.

“Yes, sir,” he bites out, spins on his heel and stalks out of the room.

Jyn watches him leave, and when she looks back at the colonel he’s watching her with a tired, exasperated expression. “Something you want to add, Sergeant Erso?”

“No,” she says coolly, and follows Cassian out of the door.

He hasn’t gone far. He’s waiting by the lift, arms crossed, and he doesn’t look up when Jyn stops next to him.

“He was never going to send you to Siroh after all this,” she says.

For a moment, she thinks Cassian is going to pretend she’s not there, but then he shrugs tightly, still not looking up. “They need all the help they can get.”

“You still have broken ribs.”

“I’ve had worse.”

She supposes he has, at that. Still. “What about me?” Cassian looks away, and she moves with him, ducking into his line of vision until he has no choice but to look at her. “I don’t have broken ribs. They barely touched me. If he’d sent you to Siroh, would you have taken me?”

“That would have been unwise,” Cassian says flatly, and he’s right, but it still stings.

“You think that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me?” she asks. This is a public corridor, anyone could come by, this is the worst place to be having this conversation but she can’t seem to make herself stop. “Do you expect me to believe that’s the first time you’ve bedded someone for the good of the Rebellion?”

“No, but they weren’t—”

He breaks off abruptly, his face twisting.

“They weren’t what?” Jyn asks, quieter. The anger is draining out of her no matter how hard she tries to cling to it, leaving her feeling husked-out and empty.

“Nothing,” Cassian says, closes his eyes, shakes his head. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter now.”

The lift chimes as it opens. He’s gone before she can press any further.

* * *

It’s a small base, and there are no ships leaving in the next day, or at least no ships with the room to let her deadhead to Hoth. Two shuttles are heading out to Siroh, and she considers trying to con her way onto one of them, but doesn’t. The situation down there is delicate, and she’s in no shape to handle delicate right now. After everything they went through to get the intel out, it would be a shame to blow the mission now because she lost her temper and started beating the shit out of checkpoint guards or random cutpurses.

She spends the rest of the morning helping Bodhi flush the lines on his shuttle, but after the third time she nearly sticks her hand in the intake manifest, he gently but firmly tells her to get out of his hair and go get some sleep. It’s good advice that she has no intention of following; when she was on her own, it would have been suicidal to run as close to empty as she’s been doing, but the relative safety of the base is a double-edged blade. She doesn’t really _need_ to sleep, so she can’t.

She finds herself wandering the base instead, a twitchy, restless energy churning under her skin. She’s seen neither hide nor hair of Cassian since the debriefing, but she avoids the strategy room, the gym, the mess, and anywhere else he’s likely to be, just in case.

It’s not the most mature way of handling the situation, she’ll grant that much. But she has no kriffing idea how to fix this, or if it’s even something that can be fixed. She’s been alone for years, on the run for most of that; the time it takes to repair something that’s broken like this isn’t a luxury she’s ever had, and even now, her instinct is to flee. There’s a part of her that never wants to see Cassian again.

Problem is, there’s another part, a bigger part, maybe, that still wants him. That still wonders what it would be like to kiss his crooked mouth, to strip him out of his clothes and touch him properly, to show him how she likes to be touched. It’s probably perverse, after what happened, but it’s still there, and that may be what scares her the most.

K-2SO finds her sitting on the edge of the landing pad, tossing bits of crumbling concrete into the barren plain several hundred meters below. The air is thin and dry on the outside, and sound carries. She hears the droid’s distinctive, clunking footsteps from fifty meters away, but doesn’t turn until its shadow looms over her, blocking out the cold sunlight.

“What?” she asks.

In response, K2 holds out a slightly squashed ration pack. “Here. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jyn says, and turns back to the desolate view of rocks and scrub grass.

The ration pack lands on her lap. “I was told to make sure you ate this.”

“What if I don’t?” Jyn asks, genuinely curious.

“The mission parameters allow for me to force-feed you. I calculate a reasonably high probability that I could do so without breaking your teeth.”

“I doubt that,” Jyn mutters, but she tears the wrapping off all the same. The ration bars are gritty and tasteless and weirdly, comfortingly familiar, and after two bites her stomach wakes up and reminds her that she hasn’t really eaten anything since the shuttle ride back yesterday. Heedless of good manners— it’s not like K2 would care, or even notice— she devours the rest of the bar, dropping crumbs onto the loose panel of her damaged shirt, which flaps annoyingly in the cold breeze. She bats at it, irritated. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a sewing kit handy.”

“No,” K2 says, and cocks its head. “But Cassian does. He was the one who sent me after you, anyway. He wants to see you.”

Her heart thumps sharply in her chest at the mention of Cassian’s name. “Really.”

“That’s _my_ assessment. He says otherwise,” the droid says, and turns to leave. After a few steps, it pauses, turns back, and adds, “He’s in the barracks. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Thoughtfully, Jyn finishes her other two ration bars, brushes the crumbs from her clothes, and stands.

* * *

The barracks are small, and it doesn’t take her long to find him. His bunk is tucked in an out-of-the-way corner, identifiable only by the familiar, battered packs on the floor just inside the privacy screen.

It’s quiet in here this time of day; everyone else has work to do, so there’s nobody around to see how long it takes her to get up the courage to rap gently on the frame of the screen.

A low curse, the sound of boots hitting the floor, and then Cassian is yanking the screen aside impatiently. When he sees her, whatever blistering comment he was about to make visibly dies in his mouth. He rocks back slightly on his feet. “Jyn.”

“Hi,” Jyn offers. Her worn shirt is a soft, heavy weight in her arms, and that’s good; it keeps her from twisting her hands nervously together. “Can I come in?”

For a moment, she thinks he’ll refuse. His eyes flicker past her to the empty barracks, and then he sighs, and nods, and steps aside to let her pass. The covers on the bed are rumpled but not pulled back; he wasn’t sleeping. A datapad rests on the pillow. Other than that, the small alcove is as blank and impersonal as her own. “What do you want?”

“I want— I wanted—” She stops, clears her throat. Cassian is just watching her; his expression is impossible to read, but it makes her feel like an insect pinned under a microscope. Finally, she says, “I wanted to know if you have a sewing kit. K2 said you did.”

“What?”

She lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “A sewing kit. Do you have one?”

“I…” His brow furrows, and he shakes his head. “Yes, of course. Why?”

“The fastener on my shirt tore.” She hefts the bundle in her arms as proof. “My pack was at the cantina, where they… anyway, it’s all I have to wear other than scrubs until we get back to Hoth, so I’d rather it didn’t fall apart. So I need a sewing kit, and I don’t have one.”

The expression that flickers across his face is almost a smile, gone in an instant but leaving something softer in its wake. “A sewing kit,” he says finally. “Alright.”

“Thanks,” Jyn says, as he turns to lift his pack onto the bed and begins rooting through the contents. She sets the shirt down, stands awkwardly next to the bed, twisting her hands together, hesitates, and finally perches on the far end of the mattress. “I should keep one on the base, but I’m not much of a seamstress, to be honest.”

Cassian straightens, a battered, lumpy roll of ripweave fabric in his hands, hesitates for a long moment, then says, without looking at her, “I could fix it for you, if you want.”

Now it’s Jyn’s turn to blink at him. “What?”

He shrugs, clearly aiming for unconcerned and missing it by several light-years. His hands turn the roll of fabric over and over, something clinking metallically inside. He’s _fidgeting_ , she realizes suddenly. “I fix mine all the time, and you already have it with you.”

Jyn swallows, feeling something warm settling behind her ribs, and nods. “Okay. I mean, if you don’t mind. Thank you.”

* * *

She’s seen Cassian’s hands operate everything from flight controls to a blaster, seen them disable Stormtroopers and apply bacta patches with the same impersonal efficiency, and there’s something incongruous about the sight of them now, sifting carefully through an incomprehensible array of needles and thread and awls and tools she has no name for. Peacetime tools, the sort of things that have no place in a life like the one Cassian Andor leads.

(She remembers, in a sickening flash, his hands pushing the shirt from her shoulders, leaving her bare to the cold. The familiar smell of him cut through with blood, the sound of his breathing. His hands were shaking. She remembers that.)

“I wouldn’t have expected you to know how to sew,” she says quietly, after a few moments. Her voice still sounds too loud in the thick silence.

Cassian shrugs, threads a needle and pulls the damaged garment to him. “It’s a useful skill. Besides, my mother always liked to sew. They tell me he had a gift for it.”

She watches his nimble fingers begin repairing the shirt with quick small stitches, so neat that they’re nearly invisible. He’s never mentioned his mother to her before. Never mentioned any other family at all, for that matter. “Is she the one who taught you?”

Cassian gives her a brief flicker of a smile. “No. She died when I was very young. I lived with a tailor and her wife for a while. They taught me.”

“Not a lot of tailors in the Rebellion.”

“You’d be surprised.” He ties off the thread and snips it, rolls the remainder around his fingers before tucking thread, needle, and scissors back into their places. Hesitates for a moment, then holds out her shirt to her. “Here.”

“Good as new,” Jyn says, half-smiling and taking it. It really is, almost. She can barely see the repair job. “Thank you.”

Cassian nods. All the tension seemed to seep out of him while he worked, but it’s back now in spades, visibly knotting up his spine. He shoves the sewing kit back into his bag and begins to stand. “I should—”

Without thinking, Jyn reaches out and catches his hand. He freezes.

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. Cassian doesn’t speak, but he also makes no move to pull away; he’s just watching her, his expression wary.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “For what happened between us. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says, his voice flat and quiet. His fingers twitch in hers, then still.

“No,” Jyn agrees. “But it wasn’t yours, either.”

He squeezes his eyes shut; a muscle tenses in his jaw. “I should go.”

He still hasn’t tried to pull away from her. “You should stay.”

“Jyn—”

“You should stay,” she repeats, and tugs gently on his hand. He could easily extricate himself if he wanted to, but he doesn’t; instead, he allows himself to be pulled down onto the thin mattress, to sit beside her. His hair is falling into his eyes, and when she reaches up with her free hand to brush it back, he turns his face into her touch, stubble rasping lightly against her palm.

“What do you want?” he asks softly. There’s no challenge in it this time.

Jyn rests her hand on his cheek for a moment, then lets it drop to his chest, feeling the warmth of him through his rough tunic, the slight rise and fall of his ribcage, his speeding pulse. Remembers how kriffing terrified she was when they were beating him that they wouldn’t stop, that he would die right there on the dirty floor in front of her.

“I don’t know,” she says finally, honestly. “But I’ve lost enough to this war. I won’t lose you, too.”

“I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Yet,” she agrees. “There’ll be a mission— there’s always a mission, isn’t there? And you’ll be gone, or I will, and the next time we’re in the same place it’ll just be so much simpler to leave it alone, to just be… what, distant acquaintances who greet each other when we pass in the hallways? Is that it?”

“It would be simpler,” Cassian concedes, and there’s a resigned note in his voice that tells her she’s hit the nail squarely on the head.

It would be easier to be angry if she hadn’t been considering exactly the same thing. Neither of them is much good at this. “Simpler isn’t better.”

He closes his eyes; his chest rises and falls beneath her hand. She’s never touched him like this, not since that moment on the beach, surrounded by roaring blinding whiteness and sure she was about to die. Even in the cell, he barely touched her beyond what was necessary. She had his cock inside her, and still her hands barely know the shape of his body.

Cassian is still for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reaches up to cover her hand with his. His breath leaves him in a soft sigh; his shoulders slump. Jyn laces their fingers together, and for a time they just stay like that, breathing together, quiet.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says again, after a while. He knows that; of course he does. But knowing and believing are two very different things. He was the one who wasn’t chained to the wall; he was the one who could have fought.

It would have been stupid, and both of them would have died. A different man would have done it anyway, but Cassian is a pragmatist and a survivor. Like her. They have that in common, and she can’t bring herself to hate him for it when she would have done the exact same thing in his place.

“I know,” he says quietly.

“We survived.”

He nods. She shifts closer to him, leans into the heat of his body and rests her head on his shoulder, and he doesn’t flinch away like she was half-expecting. He’s warm and solid against her, always stronger than he looks. All whipcord muscle and bone and sheer bloody-minded determination: the closest thing to _home_ that she’s had since she was a child.

“We survived,” Jyn says again, firmly. “And we’ll be okay. We will.”

Cassian still doesn’t answer, but after another moment his arm comes around her.

They stay like that for a long time, not moving. His hand is warm and steady where it rests on her arm, the sound of his breath as even as waves on a beach in the stillness around them.

Jyn closes her eyes.

* * *

When K-2SO comes looking for Cassian Andor some hours later, it finds the captain slumped on his bed, snoring lightly into Jyn Erso’s hair while she drools on his shoulder. It considers the scene for several minutes, then replaces the privacy screen and returns to the briefing room.

“Apologies, Colonel,” it says. “I was unable to locate either of them.”


End file.
